This is a very amusing fish out of water story with the director playing the lead role. In a nutshell, the story concerns a woman(Lisa Kudrow)desperate for some help taking care of her kids while her husband is off fighting in Irak. She has to go back to work but cannot afford daycare for her two "monsters".Cue the husband's loser brother who has nowhere to go,no money and no idea how to take care of himself, let alone two pre-school kids. He eventually gets a job wearing a ridiculous blue suit and handing out fliers in the middle of a highway to promote an Internet company( check out the poster to see this thing). Pendergast, making his first feature, reminds me very much of Woody Allen, in his early days. He is excellent at finding the humor in an ordinary situation and does not resort to cheap laughs. In many cases we see just the result of a situation and can pretty much tell what has happened just from surveying the damage. A perfect example is his first day of babysitting. All we see is the mother leaving for work and then arriving later to find him and the two kids fast asleep on the living room floor with fruit loops everywhere(and I mean everywhere), the TV blasting and generally everything in disorder. He could have shown us moments from his day but this is so much better because as we survey the disaster zone, we can just imagine what kind of a day he has had. Lisa Kudrow gets top billing and is OK in her limited role as the harried mother who is desperate for her husband to return and just does not know what to do. Christine Taylor and Terri Garr both put in what are essentially cameos but to good effect. The two kids are never cute or coy and this helps make them much more human. They do not like this uncle who has appeared out of nowhere but a bond does eventually form with him. A lot of the humor comes from the blue suit and the character's difficulty in doing such simple things as handing out fliers or drinking while wearing it. Pendergast is excellent as the out-of-his-element Salman, whose name everyone mispronounces. The rest of the cast is very good with a special mention to Conchata Ferrell as the HR person who hires Penedergast. I saw this film at the Montreal Film Festival with the director present and the audience really responded well. I hope this film gets a major distribution deal. Penedergast is a director with a lot of potential. I give this film 8 blue suits out of 10.
